Razor blade holding scrapers have been known for many, many years. More recently, plastic body scrapers have come into use because of ease of manufacture and reduction in cost over well-known metallic handled scrapers. Such scrapers are commonly used for scraping paint and other unwanted materials from surfaces such as glass surfaces and the like.
Particularly with plastic bodied scrapers having a plastic slide holding a razor blade for movement to encased or to operative positions, locking means for holding the blade in position against the scraping forces encountered are sometimes a problem to properly design. Because of the softer nature of plastic as opposed to metal, high scraping forces sometimes causes dislodgement of the locking means and blade.
Razor blade scrapers in common usage can be inherently dangerous devices when in the hands of young children. Once the razor blade is exposed, the sharp cutting edge presents a serious hazard to unwary handlers of the device. In most known blade scrapers, it is extremely simple to move the blade from an inoperative enclosed position to its operative position as by the use of a single button or slide easily operable by young children.
Many of the above problems have been overcome by our invention described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,700 issued Dec. 24, 1974. However, that patent still leaves unsolved a safety feature for the blade storage compartment commonly associated with plastic blade scraper holders. This invention is an improvement over our prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,700.